Broken families

By Julia Carneiro, BBC News, Brumadinho

Mining is the main economic activity in Brumadinho and now the cause of this unprecedented tragedy that will mark generations to come. The Paraopeba river that cuts through the town has been tinted by iron ore residue and now smells of dead fish.

The first funerals were held on Sunday. Having a body to bury may turn out to be a twisted privilege in this tragedy, with hundreds of people believed to be under the mud and huge challenges to find them.

At the information centre set up to assist the families, volunteers sit behind desks with the lists of those missing, and relatives queue up to check for any updates - or to enter more names of people still unaccounted for.

I met a woman who was searching for her husband and son. Another man expected news from his brother. A young woman looked from her young husband. The dam burst may have broken their families, too.

What about the company?

State prosecutors said they had frozen a total of 11bn reais ($2.9bn; £2.2bn) of assets belonging to Vale, Brazil's largest mining company.

Brumadinho Mayor Avimar de Melo Barcelos criticised the company for being "careless and incompetent", blaming the firm for the dam burst and the state of Minas Gerais for poor oversight. "This tragedy destroyed our city."

Image copyrightReutersImage caption
Rescue efforts have been hampered by the difficult access to areas hit

In a television interview, Vale president Fabio Schvartsman said the disaster had happened even after the company followed safety recommendations by international experts.

"I'm not a mining technician. I followed the technicians' advice and you see what happened. It didn't work," he said.

Mr Schvartsman, who took office in May 2017, promised "to go above and beyond any national or international standards... We'll create a cushion of safety far superior to what we have today to guarantee this never happens again."

Unlike dams used for water, tailings dams - like that in Brumadinho - are used to store by-products from mining operations.

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